Fishwrap wants Pope Benedict to resign, the Church to change moral teachings

What sort of people work for National Catholic Fishwrap?

The sort of people who think that Pope Benedict should resign and that the Church’s teachings on sexual morality can simply be changed… and should be changed.

My emphases and comments.

Richard Sipe suggests Pope Benedict should resign

by Thomas C. Fox on Mar. 22, 2011

In an article entitled “What can Benedict do to resolve the sexual crisis of Catholicism?” author Richard Sipe and Joe Rigert, write on the Australian Catholica website:

What can Benedict do to resolve the sexual crisis of Catholicism? At the very least he could open up for discussion and study [code for “change”] the antiquated sexual teachings on such common practices as birth control, use of condoms and sex outside of marriage. Further, he could lead the way to making celibacy optional for priests and allow women in the ministry. (Would women have taken part in, or allowed, the sex abuse scandal?) [I think they should ask SNAP that.  SNAP has been going after the LCWR to get them to cooperate concerning many cases of women religious abusing kids.] And he might call for a representative church council to consider all of these basic reforms. [That means that someone other than bishops should have the care of the Church’s teaching authority.  They want a “Magisterium of Nuns” for example.  I wonder if they would be the same nuns SNAP wants to talk to.]

But it is unlikely that any of these reforms will happen as long the aging pope and the old men of the Vatican [You would think that a journalist would know how to avoid a cliché.] persist on retaining their power and control. They must be willing to share their authority and then undertake a Sexual Copernican Shift in their basic assumptions about sexual teaching and discipline, a shift recognizing that [watch this…] our core sexual nature is a bio-diverse reality, not a theological construct. [I think that means they think the shared authority Copernicanly shift in assumptions will lead to an okay on sex with farm animals.] Only then will the pope and his men begin to address the crisis now inundating the church.  [These people are obsessed with sex.]

And now we get to the hard part[The hard part is coming up?  We were just at the impossible part.  The insane part.  What is harder than that?] the need for a courageous act. The pope could initiate this change by resigning from the papacy and calling for the resignation of all the other bishops, like him, who were complicit in the abuse scandal. [Watch this.] (In Ireland, the archbishop of Dublin proposed such action, and five bishops offered to resign.) [First, they are saying that the Pope is complicit.  Second, they are placing themselves in the position of authority.  In their analogy, the Primate of Ireland makes a suggestion and some bishops offer to resign.  Here the dissidents, probably also heretics too given their view of the Magisterium, make the suggestion and the Vicar of Christ and bishops are supposed to offer to resign. Third, I thought liberals thought the bishops in their dioceses were the problem?] Other popes have quit. In centuries past nine [?] of the 265 Roman Catholic popes have resigned or been forced out of office for the good of the church. [And after Celestine we got Boniface VIII.  These heretics should be careful what they wish for.] The most recent was Gregory XII who abdicated in 1417 to help settle the claims of three competitors for the papacy.

Perhaps they were high when they wrote this.  More probably they want additional conference engagements.

And I wonder how the sexually liberal religious groups are doing.  Flourishing, are they?

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55 Comments

  1. Seraphic Spouse says:

    “Couragous act.” WAH HA HA! Oh, wait. You mean he was serious?

  2. Legisperitus says:

    Yes, it’s all about “power and control,” and who can count the number of magisterial documents that teach “our core sexual nature is a theological construct”?

  3. I would hesitate to wrap my fish in this paper. There are other uses for a newspaper, such as lining the birdcage, but then I would have to have purchased it. Better just to leave the reading to people who have the stomach for reading it and the skill for deconstructing its muddled agenda. Thank you, Father Z, for providing us with this service.

  4. Andy Milam says:

    I learned not to ask this question 15 years ago about NCR….but: “Are you kidding me?”

  5. anna 6 says:

    What bothers me most about this is not their silly views about church teaching and sexuality (yawn!), but the fact that that they would advocate throwing Pope Benedict out with the bath water. They clearly have no clue what an extraordinary gift he is to the Church…what a fine example he is as a Christian, a priest and bishop. It makes we wonder if they ever read his homilies or books or messages…or understand any of the things he is trying to do.

    Forgive the expression, but it’s pearls before swine!

  6. Anthony022071 says:

    I guess what the writers mean by “resolve the sexual crisis of Catholicism” is that the progressives in the media would leave the Church in peace if it condoned birth control and sexual immorality like they do. It’s the media progressives that have made Church doctrine and scandals into a crisis.

  7. EegahInc says:

    “Bio-diverse reality?”

    Tell me Father, is it uncharitable to wish someone would roll up the newspaper he wrote this in and swat him upside his pretentious misguided head with it? [I’ll take that as a statement of disagreement with the writers.]

  8. kjmacarthur says:

    The 79 year old Richard Sipe wants the “aging pope and the old men of the Vatican” to resign? [Irony drips, doesn’t it?]

  9. Centristian says:

    “What can Benedict do to resolve the sexual crisis of Catholicism? At the very least he could open up for discussion and study the antiquated sexual teachings on such common practices as birth control, use of condoms and sex outside of marriage. Further, he could lead the way to making celibacy optional for priests and allow women in the ministry.”

    Right, because the answer to the sexual abuse crisis in the Church is for the Church to relax all of her antiquated “hang-ups” about sex, because children are far less-likely to become victims if the Church just comes out and says that sex is recreational as well as procreative. The answer to child abuse is birth control, condoms, and sex outside of marriage. Brilliant.

    “But it is unlikely that any of these reforms will happen as long the aging pope and the old men of the Vatican persist on retaining their power and control.”

    Right, because only young men (and women) who are somehow genetically-incapable of aging are capable of making sweeping reforms in the Church (the legacy of Pope John XXIII notwithstanding).

    “The pope could initiate this change by resigning from the papacy and calling for the resignation of all the other bishops, like him, who were complicit in the abuse scandal.”

    The pope could call for the resignation of all the bishops who were complicit in the abuse scandal, if any remain in office at this point, and if there are, he ought to, sure. He could also call for the resignation of all bishops complicit in permitting the tripe that passes for Catholicism in some places these days–such as the sewage that finds a voice in dishrags like the “National Catholic Reporter”–to poison the minds and hearts and souls of the faithful. Why should the Church have to wait for all those aging bishops to depart this Earth? Let’s replace them right now.

  10. Dirichlet says:

    Let the bishops resign. No big deal there. [You may be missing the point. They don’t want any bishops. At least they don’t want any bishops with authority.]

  11. SimonDodd says:

    At what point does dissent become outright heresy—schism, even? That line seems to lie far behind this nasty piece work.

  12. RichR says:

    I’m sure the Pope is imminently concerned about what the NCR and their readers thinks about him. [We watch these things so they don’t have to.]

  13. bbmoe says:

    Oh, yeah, the “discussion and study.” It worked so well in the Episcopal Church. In fact, it’s still going on. In the Diocese of Texas, while they are closing parishes like crazy, they are pouring $$ into all kinds of initiatives that are meant to ease the average parishioner into the comfort zone of gay marriage and gay clergy (and beyond, really.) These efforts are always billed as “conversations” about vague changes and “progress” but really, it’s about further separating the Word of God from the way the church actually does things.

    My former church is still suffering from the effects of the rector’s divorce and subsequent search for a girlfriend, which is another aspect of the wholesale redefining of sexual mores. When Catholics ask/tell me that things would be better of priest could marry, I just shake my head. One marriage is hard enough (and one hopes, commensurately rewarding) but to be married to a woman AND a parish serves neither.

  14. Philangelus says:

    But it is unlikely that any of these reforms will happen as long the aging pope and the old men of the Vatican [You would think that a journalist would know how to avoid a cliché.]

    So let me get this straight: if the aging Pope and these other old men resign, we’ll get some new kind of men in the Vatican, the kind who do not age? [They will be aged women, perhaps.]

  15. chironomo says:

    A principle “tactic” of the liberal/progressive activist is that if your argument has failed on it’s own merits, change the argument altogether to one which has no actual facts to dispute. The purpose of such an over-the-top article as this one is simply to elicit a defensive reaction from one’s opponents and distract them from the current path of events.

    In short…this is a sign of panic. It is the equivalent of a politician throwing out an accusation of adultery about an opponent, which even if untrue forces the opponent to respond. Best to ignore such attempts altogether.

  16. SimonDodd says:

    Centristian says: “The pope could call for the resignation … of all bishops complicit in permitting the tripe that passes for Catholicism in some places these days–such as the sewage that finds a voice in dishrags like the ‘National Catholic Reporter’–to poison the minds and hearts and souls of the faithful.”

    That’s exactly right. It is poison. It misleads those who don’t think things through, but even for those who do, its very existence poisons the heart and soul. Almost every time I read something there, I feel dispirited, weary, frustrated, or angry that they continue to pedal their nonsense without any fear of corrective action from their ordinary. To borrow from Thomas Bracket Reed, they never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge. Why is nothing done about it?

    I am relatively new to the Church. I don’t know how people who have been home for longer put up with the sustained menu of heresy and dissent from outlets like NCR. Perhaps, like iocaine power, one builds up a resistance, but in the meantime, it is almost paralyzingly venomous, and I worry for those who have been led perhaps fatally astray.

  17. disco says:

    This article was surely meant to run a week from Friday.

  18. teomatteo says:

    let me see… a young Pope, who has a bio-diversity, with little experience at leadership… Hmmm … where have I seen that?? …how would that work out?…

  19. Martial Artist says:

    Yes, indeed, Father Z.,

    “[You would think that a journalist would know how to avoid a cliché.]”

    Of course one would think that. One would also think that a journalist, even one working for the NCFw , and the moreso if that journalist has an Editor, would know how to write a correct prepositional phrase. But it is rather obvious that one would be wrong.

    Case in point: The article states

    the aging pope and the old men of the Vatican persist on retaining their power and control.

    Now, the last time I looked, all creatures, including even representatives of the subclass journalista such as are the subject of discussion here, do not persist on anything. Creatures can, and often do, insist on and subsist on>/b>. But creatures persist in whatever activity or state is being discussed.

    So, fellow commenters, what can we conclude about these alleged journalists? I would humbly submit that we can conclude two things about them:

    (1) They are not only corrupting the Faith of Catholics they pretend to serve;

    (2) They are also corrupting the very language they use to pretend to serve those same Catholics.

    Pax et bonum,
    Keith Töpfer

  20. Brad says:

    “the sexual crisis of Catholicism” LOL

    Amusingly gestalt how these men chose the religion itself as opposed to the religion’s church and its rules as they (the rules) interpret and present said religion. How about the sexual crisis of Islam, where literal walls are ritualistically collapsed onto gays?

    How about the sexual crisis of marriage, i.e. you can’t go down the the castro because the wife won’t let you? She can’t stop you, but she won’t approve and abet.

    Not content with doing what we want (if it feels good, do it), we sinful humans DEMAND that everyone else approve and abet. I guess because we are actually willing, post-Eden, to go to hell, but we are really afraid to be alone there?

  21. JoAnna says:

    Dear Mr. Sipe,

    You may want to take a look at http://www.reformation.com and http://www.stopbaptistpredators.org. It seems that even when denominations give the green light to sexual immorality and women clergy (1st link) and allow married clergy (2nd link), sexual abuse of children still occurs within those denominations.

    Also, what about the public school system in the United States? They have male and female teachers, married teachers, and even teachers who are openly homosexual — yet sexual abuse of children in public schools actually occurs in a greater magnitude than in the Catholic Church.

    Your logic is faulty, and your theology even more so.

    St. Anthony of Padua, Hammer of Heretics, pray for us.

  22. traditionalorganist says:

    I hesitate to click on anything referring to the fishwrap because that helps fund them. Should we draw attention to the dribble that oozes from their decaying pages? They are not a respectable journal, even for the one good journalist they have.

  23. j says:

    Fail to see the logic
    Permissive use of birth control would have prevented the child sex abuse scandal?!?!?!
    Permissive use of condoms would have prevented the child sex abuse scandal?!?!?!
    Permissive attitudes to sex outside of marriage would have prevented the child sex abuse scandal?!?!?!

    child sex abuse is child sex abuse, whether condoms or birth control or a permissive attitude are applied.

  24. Brad says:

    kjmacarthur revealed that the author of this article is 79.

    79??? I say this seriously yet bemusedly: do you mean to tell me that such an old man is still so whipped up over sex? His own (cough)? That of others? This is not good. I have always hoped that as a young man, I will be relieved of my testosterone and all its troublemaking once I become an old man.

  25. aviva meriam says:

    Reality and Facts (both historical as well as modern) dont seem to mean much to these people…

  26. AnAmericanMother says:

    Oh good grief.

    Why don’t this merry gang of pranksters simply rename themselves and become the National Episcopalian Fishwrap?

    That church already has all the stuff they seem to want . . . and it’s working so well. In fact, the House of Deputies had a super-double-secret-probation meeting down here at the airport Hilton last week to figure out how to persuade the denomination to adopt a homosexual “marriage” liturgy. It stayed secret for about 12 hours. Meanwhile, they are bleeding membership so fast that they are living on their endowments and refusing to take people off their membership rolls when they leave (we’ve been trying to get our names off since 2003 . . . to no avail. It’s worse than getting on the Plain Truth or Jehovah’s Witness mailing list.)

  27. Steven says:

    Perhaps they were high when they wrote this.

    LOL! Must’a been something in the incense they were using.

    PS – Father, you might want to check the links in the sidebar. Clicking on the hampster causes a page to open up for your service provider. [Well… that’s one way to get people to visit their site. What browser are you using? I can’t get it to do that in any of the browsers I use.]

  28. S. Murphy says:

    I love the fact that, for the Church, 1417 counts as recent.

    Maybe Mr Fox and Mr Sipe should meditate on that. The Church, having seen 2000 years’ worth of zeitgeists come and go, is somehow not impelled by the fierce urge-incontinence of now.

  29. This sounds exactly like something that a radicalized lesbian sophomore would write for an ivy league student newspaper. Raise that fist, baby!

  30. drea916 says:

    Dude! Enough with the whole thing about the Pope and other old white men trying to opress people/ keeping women barefoot and pregnant. I’m a 32 year woman (focused on career as opposed to the marriage vocation) and I’m totally in line with the Church’s teaching on birth control. It’s liberating for women. Don’t they know that? Contraception turns women into things for men to scratch their “itch” as opposed to them having to man up and be responsible. As a feminist, I’m so sick of them want to overthrow that teaching. If the Church ever changes that teaching, I’ll become Jewish or an atheist. Ok. Sorry about the rant. It just gets so old, you know?

  31. jules1 says:

    drea916 : Please rant all you like, the so called ‘liberal’ lot are actually quite out of kilter with what really is good for women. Contraception is an easy ticket for men to behave badly, and for women lose their souls.
    Martial Artist : I ditto you sentiments. We here in Australia are sick of such open dissent ,disguised as ‘discussion’

  32. jules1 says:

    drea916 : Please rant all you like, the so called ‘liberal’ lot are actually quite out of kilter with what really is good for women. Contraception is an easy ticket for men to behave badly, and for women to lose their souls.
    Martial Artist : I ditto your sentiments. We here in Australia are sick of such open dissent ,disguised as ‘discussion’

  33. mike cliffson says:

    Moan
    If someon’s a-sellin it’s acos someone’s a-buying.
    How do they manage it?
    I talk and write pretentious drivel often enough, but noone pays me a journalists loot, and Ive got 13 mouths to feed.
    It’s just all so unfair.

  34. Jack Hughes says:

    The insanity at the fishwarp continues to flourish…………

    On a side note I’m glad to see that Basil survived his vacation Romana

    [Basil’s back! And he has returned with all sorts of strange ways and ideas.]

  35. tioedong says:

    pray for us in the Philippines. The press is quoting these types to try to ram the “Reproductive health bill” down our throats, over opposition from Catholics and Muslims.

  36. Father Totton says:

    On an only slightly unrelated topic the diocesan offices have moved out of “the vortex” Today was the last day in which the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph will occupy their long-time holdings at 300 E 36th St. in midtown (so close to the N”C”R and the Regina Caeli Residence!

    HERE

  37. Childermass says:

    “The 79 year old Richard Sipe wants the “aging pope and the old men of the Vatican” to resign?”

    Just last Sunday on 60 Minutes, 79-year-old Morley Safer proposed to interviewee Archbishop Tim Dolan that the Church changing her sexual teachings would solve the sex abuse problem AND stop the decline in the Church.

    All these geriatric progressivists constantly saying that if only we became Episcopalians, the young would flock to us… as if repeating it enough times will make it true.

  38. benedetta says:

    There was an article on the patheos blog today from Deacon Kandra relating his surprise the other day when he brought up Fr. Corapi to two priests who seemed to have never heard of him and this led to the Deacon’s wondering whether Fr. Corapi is that well known. I would wager a sampler package of Mystic Monks that comparatively there are staggering numbers of laity who have never heard of the National Catholic Reporter, even in those pockets of the world that “swear by” it.

  39. “our core sexual nature is a bio-diverse reality, not a theological construct.”

    What does that even MEAN? The Catholic Church doesn’t teach that our core sexual nature is ‘a theological construct’, it teaches that it’s … a feature of human nature, and that sexual morality is knowable by reason. (The Sacramental nature of Christian marriage is a matter of revelation, of course, but there is such a thing as natural marriage.)

    I think ‘a bio-diverse reality’ may be a way to sneak in the idea that gender isn’t really real (just ‘socially constructed’) because of chromosomal disorders & such… I have actually heard it argued that humans don’t really come in two sexes biologically. It’s some weird attempt to judge the normal by the most extreme cases (and those disorders don’t actually function in the way a lot of people think they do ANYWAY).

    @drea916: “Contraception turns women into things for men to scratch their “itch” as opposed to them having to man up and be responsible.” YES! But this is so hard to get across… for a LONG time this was the biggest barrier in my accepting Church teachings wholeheartedly, even though I myself was not using it. I just had to throw away a lot of incorrect

  40. Oops.

    Last sentence should read “I just had to throw away a lot of incorrect social and economic ideas.”

  41. green fiddler says:

    “Clicking on the hampster causes a page to open up for your service provider.” @3:42pm

    Father, a day or two ago I was about to make an Amazon purchase and clicked where it says “Help Fr. Z by buying from amazon.com through this blog.” The link went to Joyent instead. (My browser is IE8, without scripts.) I should have reported sooner, but thought it was a fluke with my computer.
    p.s.
    In the sidebar I see a tweet bird, but no hamster.

  42. The Cobbler says:

    1) Father, am I supposed to learn anything new from the latest repition of idiocy from the Fishwrap? Evil is monotonous. (Well, ok, I learned that some of them have a new catchphrase, something about biodiversity [That was a good one!] and the delusion that seeing a theological aspect of sex inevitably makes sex a purely theological “construct”… but I could’ve guessed they’d think the latter.)

    2) Brad, as a young man like yourself (maybe younger, unless you’re still in undergraduate college)… I’ve heard from sources I consider reliable that it gets better as long as you don’t subscribe to hedonism. In fact, having to be out in the world already has more or less forced me to simply develop stronger mental filters — ideally I’d like my brain to stick to wonderfully, awesomely pure topics all the time, but as it is I basically find myself saying “shut up, brain” whenever something “interesting” catches its attention, and eventually having gotten it in the habit of shutting up is the next best thing. Not, mind you, that I begrudge anyone else their innocence — never, EVER begrudge anyone genuine innocence… to do so is a sign of deep moral cynicism (except possibly where it just indicates failure to discern whether something is innocence or ignorance). All that said, I find that testoserone is not so much relieved, either in the sense of running out or of getting some permission to be used (like an excuse to get to do something that’s otherwise illicit), as it is, ultimately, transformed, when one actually lives and breaths the whole thing about chaste (n.b., not necessarily non-sexual) love — not a negation but a positive love itself, you know? Modesty isn’t about not seeing some things — though that is required by what it is — it’s primarily, per se, about seeing the true beauty of the person. Fall genuinely in love — with the Church, with a particular sister in Christ, or with your sisters in Christ in general as sisters — and disordered loves, though they will not entirely cease to tempt you, will fade somewhat, like a lightbulb brought into direct sunlight. That, at any rate, is my amateur, not wildly theological, young lay man’s two cents. (Hopefully you can decipher all my sentences’ structure; I’m running on a bit of momentum from arguing things for what I hope is the last non-technical class I’ll take in academia, so my brain isn’t feeling much like processing normal sentences… getting it to go somewhere it doesn’t want is a bit harder than getting it to shut up, it seems…)

    3) Father T, are you saying TEH VORTEX has shifted??? [Portentous.]

    4) Steven, are you sure you didn’t click the link right below the hamster?

    5) Father!! Basil’s back?! Or is this that enigmatic cousin that shows up in some browsers, and I hadn’t realized he’s been around all this time? [Basil’s back. And he obviously picked up some very bad habits from those horrid Italian hamsters.]

    6) benedetta, I find most of the big things sweeping the blogosphere are next to unheard of “in real life”. That doesn’t mean they’re not worth our time, but it does mean we can overestimate the impact of whatever we see on the ‘net. I suspect newspapers that should be failing offline are a whole category of such.

  43. HyacinthClare says:

    Clicking on the hamster with Firefox gets the hamster to jump out of his circle and start playing with my mouse point! I seem to be able to click food pellets into existence and I can pet him with my pointer, and he acts like he enjoys it. If I move my pointer away, he follows it. Is this what’s supposed to happen? [He did WHAT?!?! That starts the COUNTDOWN! RUN! For the LOVE of GOD! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!]

  44. The Cobbler says:

    7) HyacinthClare, you can also hold down the mouse button to dangle the food (he’ll pick it out of your “hand” if it’s in reach), and if you’re moving the mouse while you release the button (or make a simple click) you’ll throw it… it even bounces off his cage walls. The fellow who made that app was having too much fun; reminds me of something I was working on in Java before I got swamped…

  45. benedetta says:

    The hamster is way more interesting than the fishwrap…Just got the hamster to swig from the water bottle…That’s pretty cool.

  46. benedetta: Just got the hamster to swig from the water bottle

    Sometimes it’s the small things.

  47. It is interesting that we veered from the top entry to a discussion of the virtual rat. Somehow, apt.

  48. Will D. says:

    There’s not much left to be said about the fishwrap article, Father. The argument that liberalizing Catholic teaching on sexuality will result in everything being hunky-dory is ancient, and, given the experience of both secular society and the more avant-garde Protestant “churches,” demonstrably untrue.

    As for the hamster and the joyent.com link: When I clicked the hamster cage in this browser (FireFox 4.0) I created a pellet and then went to the joyent site. It did not happen with IE 9 or Google Chrome 10.0.648.151. Go figure.

  49. Will D. says:

    It appears that there’s an open anchor tag (<a>) just before the hamster’s code block. It looks like there’s also a joyent link in the Amazon that’s throwing off the works. Don’t know why Firefox seems to be the one that’s hung up on it, though.

  50. benedetta says:

    Right, the Church’s teaching on human sexuality according to one R. Sipe is “antiquated” meanwhile according to a news story published widely last week in the secular mainstream media, more young people are opting to choose virginity. It is the latest trend. In urban areas coalitions of parents though lacking in material resources have decided that what their children need is chastity education in the high schools, not school sponsored condom distribution. I think Mr. Sipe and his publishers need to get with it and get up to date with the times. What young people are not asking for are more throwbacks from the days of the “sexual revolution” before widespread stds and the cardinal commandment for “safe sex” and the idea of near infanticide in the form of late term abortion took the joy and freedom out of sexuality.

  51. AnAmericanMother says:

    Poor old dinosaurs, clinging to the last shreds of duckweed as they sink into the mud . . . .

    I could feel sorry for them but for the fact that they mislead so many.

  52. Centristian says:

    Martial Artist:

    If readers’ responses came with a ‘like’ option, you would have my thumbs-up. Your response was marvelous. Persist in your clever erudition.

  53. terrigr says:

    I agree with AnAmericanMother. If the Church ever changes its teachings on morality, I will know the power of Hell prevailed and I’ll join those crazy monks that say the last 5 popes are fake. (Can’t remember their name.) Also, Father, why do the liberal priests get away with the dissent yet that priest (can’t remember his name either) that promotes Fatima and the last secret, was excommunicated? He seems to be very orthodox.

  54. Dr. Eric says:

    Mr. Sipe is a former Benedictine priest-monk.

    “I attended Roman Catholic parish grade school, Catholic high school, college and seminary. I entered a Benedictine Monastery in 1952 and was ordained a priest in 1959. I remained a monk and priest until 1970, when I requested and received permission from the Vatican to be dispensed from my vows as a monk and a priest.”

    http://www.richardsipe.com/reports/sipe_report_V.htm

    Domine Miserere

  55. Tony Layne says:

    Did anyone click on the link Fox provided to the full Catholica article—which was apparently posted last May? It just gets worse (or more hilarious, or sadder, depending on your mood):

    “But the abuse scandal, even if the worst in the history of the modern church, should not be treated in isolation, for it is a symptom of a systemic problem rooted in church structure and teaching. It is a symptom of an outmoded, in some cases ludicrous, teaching on sex and sexuality. In short, the pope—and his church—have a sex problem.”

    Talk about a line straight out of the 1970s! (By the way, Dr. Eric, it appears the erstwhile Fr. Sipe left the Benedictine priesthood to marry … nuf ced?) And that’s just the second paragraph.

    I’m going to be blogging on this, Father, so let me give you the hat tip here first!

Comments are closed.